complete darkness, then opened again where a grey window fell across it. “Dilsey,” she called, without inflection or emphasis or haste, as though she were not listening for a reply at all. “Dilsey.”
Dilsey answered and ceased clattering the stove, but before she could cross the kitchen Mrs. Compson called her again, and before she crossed the diningroom and brought her head into relief against the grey splash of the window, still again.
“All right,” Dilsey said, “All right, here I is. I’ll fill hit soon ez I git some hot water.” She gathered up her skirts and mounted the stairs, wholly blotting the grey light. “Put hit down dar en g’awn back to bed.”
“I couldn’t understand what was the matter,” Mrs. Compson said. “I’ve been lying awake for an hour at least, without hearing a sound from the kitchen.”
“You put hit down and g’awn back to bed,” Dilsey said. She toiled painfully up the steps, shapeless, breathing heavily. “I’ll have de fire gwine in a minute, en de water hot in two mo.”
“I’ve been lying there for an hour, at least,” Mrs. Compson said. “I thought maybe you were waiting for me to come down and start the fire.”
Dilsey reached the top of the stairs and took the water bottle. “I’ll fix hit in a minute,” she said. “Luster overslep dis mawnin, up half de night at dat show. I gwine build de fire myself. Go on now, so you wont wake de others twell I ready.”
“If you permit Luster to do things that interfere with his work, you’ll have to suffer for it yourself,” Mrs. Compson said. “Jason wont like this if he hears about it. You know he wont.”
“Twusn’t none of Jason’s money he went on,” Dilsey said. “Dat’s one thing sho.” She went on down the stairs. Mrs. Compson returned to her